Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/321

 MIRACLE CYCLES. 307 These quotations obviously throw a good deal of light on the relation of the texts. I will add two in which it is x that supplies the information, C substituting some quite different reading, while remaining nevertheless parallel in a general way. In the first x supports Y : Y : And geuen me pleyne poure and might. . . 103 W : And gyffen to me powere and myght ... 79 X : And geuen me play ne power and might ... 255 in the second it supports W : Y : To kenne it as a clerke may knawe. 1 24 W : To know it as a clerk may knaw. 100 X : To knowe it as a clarke may know. 248 I should mention, before passing on, that there are five cases of apparent conflict between C and x ; namely, four in which x seems to follow Y and C to follow W, and one in which the relations are reversed. If these cases are genuine, it is clear that C and x rnust be independently derived from a far back source, and the fact that x retains nothing of that source not also retained by C lacks explana- tion. But it is remarkable that in every one of these five cases, while the evidence of x is un- equivocal, that of C is more or less obscure, and is capable of a different interpretation. 1 They may, 1 I will quote the most instructive of these cases : Y : For in lande was neure non so light. 224 W: In land now lyfis there none so light. 216 C : For now in hart I am full lyght. 1032 X : In land there lyues none so light. . . 306 Here, it will be seen, x follows W closely where W differs from Y, whereas C agrees with Y in retaining the word ' For ' at the